It's notable and heartening when informed critical opinion
manages to stop a juggernaut in its tracks. It's too soon to say for sure, but
that seems to be exactly what's happening on W. 53 St. in Manhattan, where the
Museum of Modern Art is suddenly reconsidering its plan to demolish the
adjacent American Folk Art Museum because a chorus of prominent writers and
critics are denouncing the move.

A bit of history is in order: the Folk Art Museum was long
housed in a modest gallery space opposite Lincoln Center. In 2001, the
collection expanded into a W. 53 St. structure designed by architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien (who
likewise designed Philadelphia’s new Barnes Museum), that was praised, by
Michael Kimmelman, the NY Times critic, as "a striking sliver of
building." A bit of personal history might be in order as well: I was
often drawn to the W. 53 St. space, whether or not I also visited MoMA next
door.

On W. 53 St., the curators could mount shows that were
hardly conceivable in a gallery venue. Henry Darger was always represented —
the museum owns most if not all of this foundational, if such a word can be
used in this context, outsider's work. Adolf Wölfli and Martin Ramirez, among
others, received full treatment during that building's attenuated existence. It
would have been difficult to believe, as I became accustomed to this museum —
its encrusted, jagged facade that contrasted not unfavorably to MoMA's
rectangles and right angles, the placement of works I anticipated seeing from
the permanent collection — that the building was to be so short-lived a venue
for outsider/folk art.

Perhaps the appetite and market for outsider art was hit
especially hard by the Great Recession in an art world equivalent of last
hired, first fired. If so, that story remains to be told. In any case, in 2011,
folk art officials sold the heavily indebted structure to MoMA. There was
suspense for a while about where the permanent collection would go and if it
would remain intact, and some satisfaction in learning the museum would retreat
into its original space opposite Lincoln Center without loss of holdings. Then
MoMA announced plans not to use, even for purposes of storage, but to demolish
the W. 53 St building.

What we are in the midst of now is an enraged and possibly
potent reaction from the art world. It began with a piece by noted architecture
critic James S. Russell [1] denouncing MoMA's plans as a "flabbergasting
act of cultural vandalism", and accusing MoMA, "a museum with a huge
endowment" of succumbing to "a troubling sense of empire".

That was followed by Martin Filler's full-length critique in
the New York Review of Books [2] in which this acclaimed critic wrote that:
"The idea that Williams and Tsien’s structure has to go because its
striking, nearly windowless façade does not blend in with MoMA’s banal 53rd
Street elevations is simply preposterous." The attention in Filler's piece
goes from a defense of the folk art building to an attack on MoMA's very
aesthetic.

Now Michael Kimmelman, the New York Times writer, in what
may be a decisive entry into the debate, like Filler, challenges MoMA's power
and purpose. "Midtown and MoMA," he writes,[3] "could both use
more variety, serendipity and soul. The former folk art museum building, having
all those things, isn't an obstacle to progress but an opportunity."

The upshot is that the juggernaut has paused. The firm of
Diller Scofidio & Renfro — familiar to Bostonians from the Institute of
Contemporary Art, and to New Yorkers from the creation of the High Line and the
redesign of Lincoln Center — has been called in by MoMA to assist in a reconsideration.
Kimmelman ends his piece by writing that: "New Yorkers can make themselves
heard when it comes to shaping the public realm," and that: "Institutions,
lavished with tax breaks, responsible to the people, would do well to listen."